'Wizard' Panesar must take flight to rediscover magic tricks

It was entirely predictable that by the third week of the tour, with only days to go until the first Test, England's principal spinner would find himself coming under fire for bowling too flat and defensively.

The only surprising thing was that the spinner in question was not Ashley Giles, but Monty Panesar.

Few observers expected Panesar to be playing at all by this stage. Duncan Fletcher, the coach, is such a confirmed believer in multi-dimensional cricketers that when Giles was omitted from the team to play South Australia yesterday, it caused almost as much of a stir as the news that Stephen Harmison had pulled out with an injury.

Fletcher, it seemed, had sided with the purists. For once, he had chosen a spinner for his ability to take wickets, rather than the runs he might score from No 8 or his virtues in the gully. But his faith was not entirely repaid. After the first day, Panesar had sent down 22 overs for a return of one lone wicket. Even that success was an unworthy one, snared by a rank long-hop that should have gone to the boundary.

The team for this match is supposed to be the same as that for next week's first Test (Harmison's rib problem notwithstanding). But after the close, Fletcher stopped short of promising that Panesar would play in Brisbane. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing as the rest of us: if Panesar bowls like this, England might as well play Giles.

The general understanding of England's spin dichotomy is that Panesar is a twirly wizard who gets more revolutions than a baton majorette. Giles is regarded as more middle of the road – a Vauxhall Cavalier in human form.

The contrast between the two does exist, but their rivalry has sharpened it to the point of caricature. The truth is that a confident Giles does have guile, as 10 Australian batsmen discovered last summer. And an anxious Panesar is quite capable of dropping back into the default mode of English spinners from time immemorial, which is to whip it in and keep it tight.

If the average Pommy seamer is a pie-thrower, as Rod Marsh once claimed, his slow-bowling counterpart is more like a cost-cutting accountant, dedicated to eliminating expenditure even if the result is to block off any prospect of progress.

Over the past 12 months, Panesar has been refreshingly free of this curmudgeonly attitude. He has flighted the ball invitingly, accepted the hard knocks when they have come his way, and then conjured up the extra dip or drift that leaves the bullying batsman stranded in mid-pitch.

However, in the early stages of this tour, there has been less magic and more mundanity. Even Fletcher admitted yesterday: "He's just got to make sure he doesn't fire it in as much. I think he needs to give it a bit more air."

There could be many reasons for Panesar's slow start. Perhaps he is simply rusty, after being left out of the Champions Trophy squad. Perhaps he is trying too hard, in the knowledge that Giles is close on his heels. It is even possible that he has been rattled by the isolated outbreak of racist heckling that he experienced in Sydney.

The short period offered for adjustment makes life difficult for everyone, but Panesar is by no means a stranger to Australian grounds and crowds. He toured Australia with the National Academy in 2002, and returned a year ago to spend two months with Glenelg – a grade club in the suburbs of Adelaide.

He believes that "Australian pitches behave differently to English ones, and that means you have to bowl a bit differently too". Which throws up another possibility: maybe he is trying too hard to adapt. There is no reason why the same method that made him England's most successful and consistent bowler of the past 12 months should not prove equally fruitful here.

With any luck, everything will come right for Panesar in the latter stages of this game. The Adelaide Oval is generally seen as a spin-friendly ground, although yesterday the pitch was so hard and true that there was little encouragement for the spinner.

If it breaks up over the weekend, when hot weather is forecast, Panesar could suddenly find himself sitting on a goldmine. And there is no cure for a bowler's ills like a hatful of wickets.